1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate in general to networking. More specifically, the embodiments of the invention relate to methods and systems for providing information related to network configurations.
2. Description of the Background Art
The field of networking has grown in size and complexity over the last few years. The ubiquitous use of computers has led to the development of different types of networks connecting these computers. Connection between different networks is enabled through routers.
Routers serve as traffic managers directing communications traffic between the different networks. A router is configured through a configuration file containing statements for directing the router's operation. A network administrator scripts the configuration file by framing a basic policy for the router's operation, and converting this policy into individual statements in the configuration file. These statements enable the router to direct the communications traffic, based on the policy framed by the network administrator.
The statements required for configuring a router need to be scripted in a specific format, which varies with different types of routers. This makes it difficult for the network administrator to script the configuration file. Further, the growing complexity of networks has resulted in increasing the complexity of the statements required to configure the routers. Hence, the network administrator frequently requires help and specific information about the router while scripting the configuration file.
Currently, the network administrator needs to browse through voluminous and sometimes confusing books and manuals for information related to the configuration. Alternatively, the information is available only through a time-consuming search on the Internet or on other sources. Further, the information may be incomplete or irrelevant for the requirements.
The same difficulty is faced by a user who has to script a configuration file for other purposes, such as for configuring a communication switch, a shared printer or a computer server.